'Doesn't Peter know it!' Sidney looked at her brother plaintively. 'What about tea? Is there hope?' 'Always. Finish your saga.'

Sidney grimaced. 'There's not much else to tell. Justin and I came upon Peter grappling with this woman in the dark. He was punching her in the face, as a matter of fact, and Justin pulled him off. The woman — now, this was a bit odd — began to laugh and laugh. Of course, she must have been hysterical. But before we had a chance to see if she was fit she ran off. We drove Peter home. Squalid little flat in Whitechapel, Simon, with a yellow-eyed girl in filthy blue jeans waiting for Peter on the front steps.' Sidney shuddered. 'Anyway, Peter wouldn't say a word to me about Tommy or Oxford or anything. Embarrassed, I suppose. I'm sure the last thing on earth he expected was to have a friend stumble upon him as he rolled round an alley.'

'What were you doing there?' St James asked. 'Or was Soho Justin's idea?'

Sidney avoided his gaze. 'D'you think Deb'll take a set of photos of me? I ought to start work on a new portfolio now my hair's cut off. You've not said a word about it, Simon, and it's shorter than yours.'

St James was not to be so easily diverted. 'Haven't you had enough of Justin Brooke?'

'Helen, what do you think of my hair?'

'What about Brooke, Sid?'

Sidney directed a wordless apology towards Lady Helen before she faced her brother down. The resemblance between them was remarkable, a sharing of the same curly black hair, the same spare aquiline features, the same blue eyes. They looked like skewed mirror images: the liveliness of one was replaced by resigned repose in the other. They were before-and-after pictures, the past and the present, joined by an undeniable bond of blood.

Sidney's words, however, seemed an effort to deny this. 'Don't mother-hen me, Simon,' she said.

The sound of a clock chiming in the room startled St James out of sleep. It was 3 a.m. For a dazed moment — half-sleeping, half-waking — he wondered where he was until a knotted muscle, cramping painfully in his neck, brought him fully awake. He stirred in his chair and got up, his movements slow, his body feeling bent. Stretching tentatively, he walked to the study window and looked out on Cheyne Row.